Pius XII Memorial Library taken by Marissa Krieg

The Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

is the only collection, outside the Vatican itself, of

microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

s of more than 37,000 works from the ''Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana'', the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...

in Europe. It is located in the Pius XII Memorial Library on the campus of

Saint Louis University Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Missi ...

History

The Library was created by Lowrie J. Daly (1914–2000), with funding from the

Knights of Columbus The Knights of Columbus (K of C) is a global Catholic Church, Catholic Fraternal and service organizations, fraternal service order founded by Michael J. McGivney, Blessed Michael J. McGivney. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. ...

. The goal was to make Vatican and other documents more available to researchers in North America. Microfilming of Vatican manuscripts began in 1951, and according to the Library's website, was the largest microfilming project that had been undertaken up to that date. From 1951 to 1957, twelve million manuscript pages were recorded, from 30,000 different works. This represents approximately 75% of the manuscripts available in the targeted language groups. Other microfilm projects in the 1950s included

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

archival material from

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, archives in both

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, and the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. The Library opened in 1953, and moved to the St. Louis University campus, in the Pius XII Memorial Library, in 1959. The first librarian was Charles J. Ermatinger, who served until 2000. As of 2007, the Library has microfilmed versions of over 37,000 manuscripts, with material in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and Ethiopic, as well as several more common Western European languages. There are reproductions of many works from the Biblioteca Palatina and Biblioteca Cicognara at the Vatican, as well as

Papal The pope is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the pope was the sovereign or head of sta ...

letter registers from the ''Archivio Segreto Vaticano'' (

Vatican Secret Archives The Vatican Apostolic Archive (; ), formerly known as the Vatican Secret Archive (; ), is the central repository in the Vatican City of all acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope, as the sovereign of Vatican City, owns the material held ...

) from the 9th to 16th centuries, in the series ''Registra Vaticana'' and ''Registra Supplicationium''. The Film Library also collects manuscript catalogs and handwritten inventories of Vatican Library manuscripts, as well as those of other libraries, including a collection of microfilmed copies of over 2,500 medieval and

renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

manuscripts from other libraries, over 20,000

incunabula An incunable or incunabulum (: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book, pamphlet, or broadside (printing), broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. The specific date is essentiall ...

(early printed books), and 52,000 color slides of illuminated manuscripts. The collection also includes many hardcopy works on the subjects of

palaeography Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic disciplin ...

codicology Codicology (; from French ''codicologie;'' from Latin , genitive , "notebook, book" and Greek , ''-logia'') is the study of codices or manuscript books. It is often referred to as "the archaeology of the book," a term coined by François Masai. ...

, illumination, and other topics related to manuscript studies.

Conference

The Library hosts an annual conference on Manuscript Studies, which is held in St. Louis in mid-October.

Journal

''Manuscripta'' is a biannual

academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...

published by the library. Established in 1957, it covers topics related to the study of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. The journal is printed and distributed by Brepols Publishers and is edited by Gregory Pass.

References

{{Authority control Libraries in Greater St. Louis Medieval studies Renaissance manuscripts Saint Louis University Knights of Columbus Vatican Library Buildings and structures in St. Louis Libraries in Missouri 1953 establishments in Missouri Archives in the United States